OSCE Baku office says registration of presidential candidates “transparent”
By Aynur Jafarova
The OSCE office in Baku has said Azerbaijan's Central Election Commission conducted the registration of candidates for the October 9 presidential election in a "transparent" manner.
"The way requests by presidential candidates were received, analyzed and approved was transparent," Koray Targay, head of the office, said on September 20. "All opportunities have been created for the election campaign."
Targay said there were problems with the registration of two candidates but their cases will be investigated within law.
The Baku Appeals Court on September 20 rejected an appeal by Ilgar Mammadov, head of the Republican Alternative (Real) opposition group, who was disqualified from the vote by the CEC, which said Mammadov had failed to collect enough number of signatures to run.
Campaigning for the presidency started on September 16 with incumbent President Ilham Aliyev vying for the top job with nine other candidates. Aliyev, who has overseen a tripling of the economy in the past decade, is likely to win.
Over 89 percent of voters support Aliyev, according to a recent poll conducted by the NGO Partnership Alliance in six regions of the country.
Of the polled, 89.32 percent said they would vote for Aliyev, while 8 percent expressed support for Jamil Hasanli, the main opposition candidate representing the National Council of Democratic Forces, an opposition alliance.